Before that afternoon in December, she was blissfully myopic, unaware that she might need to look over her shoulder; or sideways, into doorways as she came up on them. Or to scan the mirrors in a restroom. She used to walk leisurely through parking garages, even deserted ones, even at night. She stopped to help when approached by strangers on the street wanting directions. Now a heavy velvet curtain has risen, revealing all around her a lively pageant of possible danger. She not only sees it, but feels it whispering over her skin, as though, even when she’s fully dressed, a fresh patch of nakedness has presented itself. The very peculiar thing is that this doesn’t make her frightened; rather, it enlivens her.

Back in the car, she drives up through southern Wisconsin, also through March. The bleakness adherent to the month is that although the Midwestern winter is past its most brutal stretch, everyone is by now beaten down, and late assaults land on what’s already bruised. A fresh cold snap holds no bracing novelty. Leftover snow is by now a pewter color that, on too many days, matches the sky. Eventually, though, at some point in March, winter gets broken. That happened yesterday. Today a watery sun hangs in a pale sky. Cate puts down all the windows so she and Sailor can smell the earth thawing on both sides of the highway.

After getting off I-90, Cate winds chaotically around Madison a little (“Recalculating. At your next opportunity, make a U-turn,” says the nonjudgmental WAZE voice) before finding Neale’s address. The apartment is on the third story of a tan brick building in a complex of maybe twenty units with a developer-generated, meaning-free name—Wainscot Village—a featureless box fronted by a parking lot with covered spaces.

“Come on,” she says to Sailor, opening the door on his side. “Time to get social.”

Vestigial blue salt crunches under her feet on the metal stairs that run between the sections of the building. Sailor lags behind, peeing on several of the bushes that form a sort of hedge between the lot and the building.

“Hey you!” she calls down to him and he focuses and follows.

When they get to the door, Cate hears big life on the other side. Different sorts of clatter. Plates and silverware. Cabinets snapping shut with light thwaps. Voices without clear words. Orders given and taken, then laughter. Inside, Neale and Joe and Claude are getting ready for her. It’s half past noon; lunch is assembling. And though the assembly is on her behalf, she pauses before pressing the doorbell. She fears that even with the door opened she will feel just as shut away from Neale, that this visit is a formality to firm up the lie that their friendship is still solid—a lie Neale has been heavily promoting ever since she decided to make this move. Cate hates these conversations.